The truth behind the theory that the US caused the war in Ukraine
1)
Since February 24 2022, when Russia began its military invasion of Ukraine, we have strongly condemned Russia for violating international law, using force to violate the sovereignty and territory of other countries, and taking the lives of innocent people. ... Whatever the reason, invading other countries is not acceptable.
2)
However, the words of Professor John Mearsheimer, a professor of international politics at the University of Chicago in the United States, are now attracting worldwide attention, as he claims that "Western countries, especially the United States, were the ones who caused this war in Ukraine".
3)
Professor Mearsheimer made the following statement at the beginning of his YouTube appearance on February 15:
"The conventional wisdom, widely accepted in Western countries like the US and the UK, is that Putin is to blame for this crisis in Ukraine, and Russia is to blame. So there are bad and good guys; we are the good guys, and the Russians are the bad guys. But that is entirely wrong. The United States and its allies, especially the United States, are to blame."
He accuses the US-led Western countries of using a three-pronged strategy to push Russia into a military invasion of Ukraine. What are these three pillars?
4)
No. 1. NATO's eastward expansion
The first, as has often been pointed out, is the eastward expansion policy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Professor Mearsheimer points out that since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a weakened Russia has twice become complacent and accepted NATO's eastward expansion. The first time was in 1999, when former Soviet satellites Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joined NATO. The second time was in 2004, when seven countries joined NATO, including the three Baltic states and Romania.
5)
Initially, these countries were members of the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance formed by Eastern European countries under the leadership of the Soviet Union in opposition to Western NATO. However, with the end of the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact in the East was dissolved in 1991, while NATO in the West remained and continued to expand. After the Cold War, the United States became the sole superpower, and in particular, the administration of Democratic President Bill Clinton began a full-scale eastward expansion of NATO in the late 1990s.
6)
The April 2008 NATO summit was the catalyst.
President Putin has long been vehemently opposed to NATO's eastward expansion. Professor Mearsheimer points out that the issue of NATO's eastward expansion exploded at the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, the Romanian capital. At that meeting, then-US President George W. Bush proposed that the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia should join NATO. Ukraine and Georgia have also clearly stated their intention to join NATO.
7)
In retrospect, Germany and France were very cautious and opposed the American proposal, fearing an unnecessary backlash from Russia. In the end, however, an agreement was reached on the future membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO.
8)
Professor Mearsheimer points out: "At that time, Russia asserted that the accession of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO was a threat to the survival of the Russian state and was unacceptable" and claims that this is the origin of the current war in Ukraine. This is true.
Russian forces invaded Georgia in August 2008, four months after the NATO summit.
9)
Referring to the invasion of Crimea by Russian forces in 2014, Professor Mearsheimer said: "There is an important naval base called Sevastopol (on the Black Sea) on the Crimean peninsula, and it is unthinkable that Russia would turn it into a NATO base. "This is the main reason why Russia took Crimea."
The professor then gave the example of the "Cuba Crisis" in 1962, when Soviet nuclear missiles were deployed in Cuba, which was at the throat of the United States, and the Kennedy administration removed them.
10)
As noted above, since Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Ukraine has become the front line of a new East-West conflict. From Russia's point of view, if Poland, Romania, the three Baltic states and even Ukraine were to join NATO, it would lose its "buffer zone" with NATO.
11)
No. 2. EU enlargement
Professor Mearsheimer identified the expansion of the European Union (EU) as the second pillar of the Western strategy that led Russia to invade Ukraine militarily. The EU is an economic and political union that founded Western-style liberal democracy.
Ten countries, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the three Baltic states, joined the EU in 2004; two countries, Romania and Bulgaria, in 2007; and Croatia, in 2013.
12)
Professor Mearsheimer points out that the West tried to bring Ukraine and Georgia into the EU after these countries. The EU has indeed been engaged in practical negotiations for the further membership of Eastern European countries that have distanced themselves from Russia, such as Georgia and Ukraine. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine applied for membership on February 28 and Georgia and Moldova on March 3. It is easy to see how this has encouraged Russia.
13)
The third pillar driving Russia
No 3. Colour revolution
According to Professor Mearsheimer, the colour revolution is the third pillar of the Western strategy that drove Russia.
Colour revolutions are democratic movements that have occurred since 2000 in communist countries of the former Soviet Union, such as Yugoslavia, Serbia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, to overthrow dictatorial regimes.
14)
Professor Mearsheimer said that in mid-February 2014, a coup d'état broke out in Ukraine, which was extended with the support of the United States. He pointed out that on the 22nd of that month, the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted amid riots after failing to stop the movement of demonstrators, and a pro-American leader was installed in his place. The professor said that Russia did not tolerate this and denounced it as "illegal regime change," which led to the military invasion of Crimea on March 1 that year.
15)
This political upheaval in Ukraine took place during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, a period in which President Putin was concentrating his efforts, and even Putin's face was destroyed.
It has been pointed out that the recent invasion of Ukraine was President Putin's revenge after eight years.
16)
Moreover, we must not forget that former Eastern European countries are becoming democracies one after another, and the "tsunami" of democracy is gradually shaking the foundations of Putin's dictatorship. We must not forget that behind the current war in Ukraine lies the conflict between democracy and dictatorship. Ukraine has also become a frontline in the confrontation between Western liberal democracies and heavy-handed authoritarianism.
The truth behind the theory that the US caused the war in Ukraine
https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/578952
PROFESSOR JOHN MEARSHEIMER: THE CRISIS IN UKRAINE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbj1AR_aAcE
This interview was recorded on Tuesday, February 15, before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Professor John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and served five years as an officer in the US Air Force. He has published six immensely influential books on international relations theory. In 2020, he won the James Madison Award, which is given once every three years by the American Political Science Association to "an American political scientist who has made a distinguished scholarly contribution to political science."
Full text of President Putin's speech at the Valdai Club - October 7, 2023
https://indeep.jp/putin-s-valdai-club-speech/
President Putin's speech at the Valdai Club - October 7 2023
https://indeep.jp/putin-s-valdai-club-speech/
1)
The world is too complex and diverse to be subjugated to a single system, even if it is backed by the enormous power of the Western powers accumulated through centuries of colonial policies.
So are your comrades. Although much of it is absent today, they do not deny that the prosperity of the West was primarily achieved by robbing its colonies over the centuries. This is true. In essence, this level of development was completed by plundering the entire planet.
2)
The history of the West is essentially a record of endless expansion.
Western influence in the world is a gigantic military and financial pyramid scheme, exploiting the natural, technological and human resources of others to generate ever more 'fuel' to sustain itself.
That is why the West simply cannot and will not stop it. Our arguments, reasoning, common sense pleas and proposals have been ignored.
I have said this publicly to allies and partners, and sometimes we have made suggestions.
3)
For example, maybe we should join NATO—something like that. But NATO doesn't need countries like ours. What else do I need? We thought we were part of the crowd and got our foot in the door. What else was there to do? There was no more ideological conflict.
What was the problem? I think the problem was their geopolitical interests and their arrogance towards others. Their assertiveness was and is a problem.
4)
We are forced to respond to increasing military and political pressure.
I have often said we did not start the so-called "Ukrainian war". On the contrary, we are trying to stop it.
We did not stage the bloody and unconstitutional coup in Kyiv in 2014. When similar events occur elsewhere, all the international media, especially those subordinated to the Anglo-Saxon world, say: "This is unacceptable" and "This is anti-democratic".
5)
However, the international media condoned the coup in Kyiv.
Suddenly, everything was acceptable.
Russia was doing its best to help the people of Crimea and Sevastopol at the time. We did not try to overthrow the government or threaten the people of Crimea and Sevastopol with Nazi-style ethnic cleansing.
We did not try to subjugate Donbas by shelling and bombing. We did not threaten to kill anyone who wanted to speak our mother tongue.
6)
It may be possible to brainwash millions of people who perceive reality through the media. But you have to know what happened. For nine years, they bombed, shot and used tanks.
It was a war, a real war waged against Donbas. And in Donbas, nobody counted the number of children who died. No one cried for the dead in other countries, especially in the West.
7)
The war, started by the Kyiv regime with the firm and direct support of the West, has been going on for more than nine years, and Russian special military operations are aimed at stopping it.
And that's because unilateral action, no matter who takes it, inevitably provokes retaliation. As we know, every effort has an equal and opposite reaction. This is what every responsible, sovereign, independent, and self-respecting nation does.
8)
In the (current) international system, where arbitrariness reigns and all decisions are left to those who consider themselves exceptional, innocent and exemplary, every state is hated by the hegemon. We all know we can be attacked simply for being who we are. Proportionality - and, I would add, any sense of reality.
Unfortunately, we must admit that the West has lost its sense of reality and has crossed all sorts of red lines.
They really shouldn't have done that.
9)
I want to clarify the Ukraine crisis is not a territorial dispute. Russia is the largest country in the world by land area, and we have no interest in conquering more territory. We still have much work to properly develop Siberia, Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East.
This is neither a territorial dispute nor an attempt to create a regional geopolitical balance. The issue is broader and more fundamental and concerns the principles on which the new international order is based.
10)
Lasting peace means that everyone feels safe and secure, that their opinions are respected, and that they are not at the mercy of the hegemon, even if they disagree with it. This will only be possible if there is a balance in the world where no one can force or coerce others to act or behave. This includes the sovereignty, true interests, traditions and customs of people and countries.
In such an arrangement, the very concept of sovereignty is negated and thrown in the dustbin.
11)
The commitment to a bloc-based approach and the drive to force the world into a perpetual situation of "us versus them" is a bad legacy of the 20th century. It is a product of Western political culture, at least in its aggressive manifestations.
Again, the West, at least some of its elites, always needs an enemy.
12)
They need an enemy to justify the need for military action and military expansion. But they also need an enemy to maintain internal control within this particular system of hegemony and blocs like NATO and other military-political blocs. There must be an enemy so everyone can rally around the 'leader'.
We don't care how other countries live their lives. But I see how ruling elites in many countries force societies to accept norms and rules that the people, or at least a significant number of people, and in some countries, the majority, do not want to buy. It's visible to us.
13)
However, the authorities are constantly inventing justifications for their actions, attributing growing internal problems to external causes and creating or exaggerating threats that do not exist.
Russia is a favourite topic of these elite Western politicians.
Of course, we have become accustomed to this throughout history. But they try to portray those who do not unthinkingly follow these Western elites as enemies.
14)
They have used this approach against several countries, including the People's Republic of China, and have even tried to do so against India in certain circumstances.
We are aware of the scenario they are using in Asia and are looking at it. These attempts continue even though they are considered futile.
They are also trying to portray the Arab world as an enemy. They act selectively and try to be precise, but this (the current state) is the result. They even try to portray Muslims as a hostile environment.
15)
Those whom Western elites immediately see acting independently and in their interests are immediicapped persons who must be removed.
Artificial geopolitical associations are imposed on the world, creating restricted blocs. We see this in Europe, where an aggressive NATO enlargement policy has been pursued for decades, and in the Asia-Pacific and South Asia, where it threatens to destroy open and inclusive cooperation.
16)
Block-based approaches, to call a spade a spade, restrict the rights of individual countries, limit their freedom to develop in their way, and try to force them into a "cage" of obligations.
In a sense, this amounts to depriving them of a part of their sovereignty, often followed by the imposition of their solutions, not only in the security field but also in other fields, especially the economic area. This is happening now in relations between the United States and Europe.
17)
It doesn't need to be explained now.
To achieve these goals, they are trying to replace international law with a "rules-based order", whatever that means. It is unclear what these rules are or who drew them up. It's just bullshit, but they're trying to plant this idea in the minds of millions of people.
"You have to live by the rules."
What kind of rules are those?
18)
Our Western "comrades", especially those from the United States, not only arbitrarily set these rules but also control how they are followed and how others generally behave. Teach others how to behave.
All this is done and presented in a blatantly wrong manner and in a coercive way. This is also a manifestation of the colonial mentality. We always hear the words 'must', 'obliged', 'we are seriously warning you'.
19)
Who are these people who do this?
Do they have the right to warn others?
This is amazing. Maybe the people who say all these things should eliminate their arrogance, stop behaving like this towards an international community that fully understands their aims and interests, and give up this colonial mindset. Or?
20)
Sometimes, I like to say to them: "Wake up! Those days are long gone and will never come back".
More to the point, over the centuries, such actions have led to one thing: large-scale wars and various ideological and quasi-moral concoctions to justify these wars. A rationalisation has taken place.
21)
This is particularly dangerous today. As you know, humanity can quickly destroy the entire planet, and continuous mental manipulation on an incredible scale has led to a loss of sense of reality. We must find a way out of this vicious circle.
Zionism - nationalistic movement
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism
